Coffee and Cigarettes
by SubtlyFailing
Summary: Phinbella oneshot. Isabella visits Phineas in his college dormroom in New York City and finds hersef enchanted with the music he creates.


_**Coffee and cigarettes**_

Phineas' dorm room smells like black coffee and menthol cigarettes and just a little bit of motor oil, Isabella observes as she pulls his door open and slips inside.

She heard the music from outside, soft tones floating though the walls from his room, and alerting the college dormitory that Phineas Flynn was hard at work. Isabella doesn't make herself known as she enters; instead she stays by the door, back leaned against it, eyes closed as she allows the music to engulf her.

It is a new piece, she realizes, as she peeks over at the swaying form that is sitting on the bed, oblivious to anything but the guitar strings and the fleeting, haunting tones they produce. It is a melody unlike anything she has heard before and Isabella is hard pressed to keep her tears at bay, because the music just _tugs_ at her heart.

She pulls at the hem of her sundress as she watches him. Thinks she is overdressed compared to the environment around her. Phineas sitting on the edge of the bed in faded jeans and a flannel shirt clearly _doesn't do overdressed_, and jeans and a tank would have been perfectly appropriate_. _But Isabella can't help that voice in the back of her mind telling her to dress up prettily every time she goes to visit him. _She wants to look pretty for him, dammit_. Even though, in all her nineteen years of life, she can't recall him having noticed even once.

Still, she does it every time. She dresses herself in ribbons and lace that earns her more than just a few looks (and even a few cat calls) as she trecks through the halls of Phineas' dormitory.

None of them matter though. She has had her mind set since she was eight years old.

"Hey"

The voice brings her out of her musings, and she brings her eyes up to meet Phineas' blue ones. He is still sitting on the bed, hunched over his guitar, but his attention is on her. He has grown up a lot over the years, hair growing longer and more shaggy and features growing more angular _and dare-she-say more handsome. _He is smiling at her with that impish half-smile that makes her fall in love with him all anew, and Isabella feels herself grow weak in the knees, and loves every second of it.

"Hey yourself," she says, and feels out of breath and tries to figure out what to do with her hands.

She settles on intertwining then in front of her as she watches Phineas put his guitar away and stand to greet her with a hug.

He smells like cigarettes and Isabella notes that he must have started smoking more regularly than what he did the last time she visited him. She doesn't comment on it. Figures a genius needs something to help him deal with the pressure that people are putting on him. Phineas were never good at dealing with pressure, especially without his brother at his side.

But Ferb has taken up engineering down south, and Phineas is left alone with his music in New York City.

He asks her about her trip and she tells him that it was completely fine. Four hours in a sweaty bus with sweaty, perverted old men was nothing as long as she got to see him after such a long time.

She doesn't tell him that though. Knowing Phineas, he would probably start a travel-agency just to get her home comfortably.

Instead, she asks him about the piece he was playing.

"It was really beautiful," she tells him, and her voice is a little bit dreamy and a little bit choked up still. He smiles at her and his smile holds something distinct. But she can't decipher it.

"It's a composition I've been working on for one of my classes," he explains, "it's about beauty". That last part was spoken as he scratches his ear in that adorable habit that tells her when he's uncomfortable or embarrassed; she giggles and assures him that it is perfect.

"Could… could I hear it again?" she asks, and he nods and motions for her to sit beside him on the bed, as he picks up his guitar. "Close your eyes until it's over," he tells her softly, and she obliges right away, following his lead like she has done since they were children.

As he begins to play, she becomes engulfed in the waves of sound, letting them wash over her like the whipped salty waves of the ocean on a windy day.

He starts humming as he plays his voice a raspy drawl made gruffer by the cigarettes and the hours spent singing alone in his room, or on some stage somewhere. She isn't even aware that she is crying until she feels Phineas' hand, calloused from years of playing; wipe a salty tear from her cheek.

She chokes a bit and wipes away the rest of the tears, her fingers turn black with mascara and she knows she looks like a mess. Phineas is watching her with an expression that she hasn't seen before, yet knows all too well. It's lust and love and everything in between.

"Do you want to know name of the song?" he begins, and she stops trying to clean up her makeup to look at over at him. Confusion on her makeup-smeared face.

"The vision of beauty," he continues, "_my _vision of beauty_". _

Again he is scratching his ear again, uncomfortable or embarrassed. Isabella could swear she saw his cheeks tint a subtle pink.

"I called it Isabella's song".

She stills, stares at him, and then their lips are meeting.

His hands find her waist and hers tangle themselves in his red hair as she draws him in closer and opening her mouth against his in a kiss unlike any she has experienced in her nineteen years of life. She has kissed boys before, of course. She is not nearly as pure _and chaste_ as her nine year old counterpart would have wanted her to be when she locked lips with the love of her life.

But with all her experience in past boyfriends, none was quite like Phineas, with his kisses tasting like peppermint and menthol cigarettes and his touches setting her very skin on _fire. _Somewhere in the back of her mind a nine year old girl is screaming in joy, because she is kissing _Phineas_. It is not a dream, it is not a drill, she is actually here, in New York City with the chapped lips of Phineas Flynn moving in rhythm against her own.

She has known him her entire life, the neighboring boy, the visionary, the _genius_. Together they have cried until no tears would fall, laughed until their lungs burnt with lack of air and _travelled the earth, space and time. _They had grown up together, and her childish enamorment had grown into deep, unwavering love as she herself had grown into a woman. She had cherished him, admired him, _loved him_, and for years she had been waiting, searching for the least bit of evidence that he might return those feelings_. If only a little bit_.

The need for air stops the kiss and they both pull away gasping, clinging to each other, and Isabella feels new tears press at her eyes as his expression tells her the exact words she has waited so long to hear and she actually chokes on her words when she ask him _just what took him so long_.

"Having to build up courage, mostly," he tells her evenly, and she hums a half-reply and presses her face into the crook of his neck and thinks that here, in this stuffy little college dorm that smells like black coffee and menthol cigarettes and just a little bit of motor oil, she is completely content. 

_**Fin. **_


End file.
